Diest TKO wrote:Who decides what someone deserves okie?
Well, in general, what a willing buyer is willing to pay a willing seller. So if you work for whatever someone is willing to pay you for your work or your product, you have earned it, and therefore deserve it. Of course, life is unfair, but I think the person that receives the service of your work is a better judge of worth than some bureaucrat sitting in an office somewhere far removed from the situation. It is an imperfect world, but if one feels he is not being paid what he deserves, he can go somewhere else and let someone else decide. That is what freedom is all about.
Quote:I think that you have mischaracterized the left. If someone earns a modest wage, I don't think they should have an above modest lifestyle. I do think however that they need a roof over their head and food no matter what they deserve.
The constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness, not happiness, and it guarantees freedom, but I don't read where it guarantees a roof over your head or food, even if you refuse to work, and you are able bodied.
Quote:The notion that I've heard introduced lately here of class-envy (or something to that tune) is a interesting notion, but you extrapolate to much from simple observation.
I think it is a very real notion. Envying the rich gets a person exactly nowhere. I am not rich, but you know what, I don't care about being rich, only enough to live comfortably, and I feel sorry for many rich, because they are some of the most miserable people around. We often hear how the rich pay are getting all the tax breaks, well they pay most of the tax, so why not?
Quote:Liberals don't think that a lower class person should live as a middle class, and a middle class should live as a upper class, etc. I think liberals believe that every class should be sustainable and (with effort) upgradeable.
I feel that the conservative vision of what an American should do to achieve success is based of non-uniform situations, which the conservative does not address. Any attempt to address this by liberals is simply dismissed as "a handout." The idea that everyone can achieve success via conservative principles is far too idealistic.
I think it is very realistic. Hard work, study, and simply showing up on time, doing your best, live frugally and responsibly, I have never personally seen anyone fail that does this. Hard luck can happen, but there are already safety nets for that.
Quote:I see conservative stances on topics like abortion, and I'm left wondering what world they think they live in? In terms of what is practical and dealing with an uncomfortable reality, many conservatives would rather stick their head in the ground... or rather, their bible.
I am not ashamed for standing up for responsibility, which includes nurturing your own offspring. This issue transcends the Bible into all cultures and traditions, Diest. It is important to recognize the responsibility and primary purpose of sexual activity, and that is very lacking in today's culture. I am against all abortion, except I think where a crime has been committed already, such as rape or incest, but being a pragmatist, I think limiting late term abortions is at least honorable, sensible, and the only moral thing to do as a society. Abortions early on, I do not favor it, but I would not going to disobey the courts, however if I was a politician, I would use the bully pulpit to make speak out for honorable behavior. I recognize people may not follow it, but that is at least my right and responsibility to set a decent example as a politician.
Quote:Note: MM, I'll leave you to debate with the conservatives on this topic, because despite your claim, their is no shortage of people who call themselves "true conservatives" ready to expand government on this issue and related issues.
If anything is shocking to me about okie's thoughts on liberals, it's that they have and over-idealistic view of mankind's good nature, AND that they are somehow bitter. The two ideas are really in conflict, and perhaps more relevant, I think very unrelated to liberal views all together.
If liberal views are in anyway forged by assumptions about mankind, I'd say it's the opposite of how okie claims. I think liberals cannot avoid the reality of greedy men and women.
Perhaps a moment to make an aside. I honestly believe that both left and right get bamboozled by a third group, who care for nothing but themselves. They exploit both groups in different ways, IMO. But that can be saved for another time.
I see modern liberal philosophy about dealing with the world we currently live in. Not the past. For their ideas on the future, some work, some don't. I'm fine with that, and I accept it going in. I think it's dishonest how conservatives frame their views as being a sure thing.
Free market is a great idea, and we use many parts of the idea, and we benefit greatly from it, but it's not perfect. It exists on a paying field which has never existed, and I don't expect ever will. Conservatives claiming else wise are being over idealistic IMO.
Having a tax system which favors the wealthy, doesn't work.
The trickle-down effect, doesn't work.
... at least in the world we live in. And that's my point for now: The world the conservative lives their mind in, is not the same one we walk.
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I do not understand your post completely. My statements about liberals viewing human nature is relative to the belief that everybody will be nice to us if we be nice to them, and that government is a trustworthy instrument in the hands of mankind, and that utopia may actually be achievable on earth. The founders distrusted government, and understood the treachury of human nature, thus safeguards were established to protect us from government and from each other.
Lastly, the tax system has increasingly made higher earners shoulder more of the tax burden, so I don't know what you are talking about in regard to taxes. Trickle down does obviously work, as without wealth, there would be no jobs and no capital to create businesses and jobs. Read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics book, Diest. We as a society have to keep on creating wealth, otherwise just trading wealth eventually burns up all the wealth and the society becomes poorer. That is what concerns me in regard to a service oriented economy. All the more reason to go out and drill and produce energy, as well as natural resources, plus continue to grow our own food, manufacture goods, innovate new technology, etc., otherwise we die on the vine.
